The Beer Nut: Drink in the flavor of Montreal's best beers

Montreal is one of my favorite vacation places. It's a great beer destination, and the best stop on the trip is the Dieu du Ciel brewpub.

Unfortunately, I can't go to Montreal all of the time (work, money, long drive), but I can get Dieu du Ciel beers any time I want them.

The brewpub produces dozens of beautifully made beers of almost any style you can think of throughout the year.

And, for the American market, Dieu du Ciel bottles a dozen of its beers.

These aren't run-of-the-mill beers either. They are all simply fantastic. They live up the brewery's name, which translates to "God of Heaven." Drinking them is the next best thing to going to Montreal.

The most well-known of the beers is Peche Mortel (Mortal Sin). This is a 9.5 percent alcohol by volume (ABV) imperial coffee stout.

This is one of the most coffee-like beers on the market. They use real coffee to produce a roasty bitterness. A perfect beer for dessert.

It's also a hefty beer. One of these is enough for most people. Another of Dieu du Ciel stouts, the Aphrodisiaque (Aphrodisiac), is also a standout.

The Aphrodisiaque is much lower in alcohol (only 6.5 percent ABV) and except for being a stout, there's not many similarities with Peche Mortel.

Instead of coffee, it's brewed with cocoa and vanilla. Both flavors blend together to make a dreamy beer. Neither the chocolate nor the vanilla overwhelm the other.

Dieu du Ciel is known for more than just for its stouts.

Rigor Mortis is a 10.5 percent ABV Belgian-style quad. It tastes like a traditional quad - low bitterness with fruity and spice flavors from the yeast. You'll also pick up some hints of chocolate and caramel if you really pay attention to the flavor.

Dieu du Ciel is not afraid to try unusual ingredients in its beers, including hemp and hibiscus flowers.

The Fumisterie (Smoke Screen) is brewed with hemp. As the name indicates, it has a smoky flavor to it. There's a slightly odd-flavor to it, which could be attributed to hemp.

The Rosee d'hibiscus (Pinkish Hibiscus) is a great warm-weather beer. It's a wheat beer brewed with hibiscus flowers. The flowers give a pinkish hue to it, and it has an incredible aroma.

On the opposite flavor spectrum is the Route des espices (Spice Route), which is a rye beer brewed with peppercorns.

Rye beers, in general, have a peppery flavor to them. Add peppercorns, and there's a a lot of pepper flavor in the beer. This is a perfect beer to enjoy with food you'd normally put pepper on.

The Corne du diable (Horn of the Devil) is a 6.5 percent ABV American style India pale ale. The brewery does a good job of mimicking West Coast brewers with this beer. You get a lot of citrusy, piney hop flavor, with a strong malt backbone, giving it a caramel-like sweetness to balance out the bitterness.

The Dieu du Ciel celebrates the changing of the seasons with several beers, including two of its bottled beers.

The Solstice d'hiver (Winter Solstice) is a big, burly barley wine.

The 9 percent ABV beer is a sipper - perfect for aging. It gets its inspiration from American barley wines, which are hoppier than the British equivalents.

Although bitter, it's well done. The ample amount of sweet malts in the Solstice d'hiver provides a perfect balance for the bitterness, providing a roasted caramel flavor mixed with some fruitiness.

The Equinoxe du printemps (Spring Equinox) celebrates more than just the coming of spring - it also incorporates local maple syrup.

The maple syrup makes this Equinoxe du printemps a unique scotch ale. Scotch ales are typically on the sweet side, and this is even more so. The use of maple and its fermentable sugars also help raise the alcohol to 8 percent ABV.

Other Dieu du Ciel beers available in stores are the Blanche du Paradis (Paradise White), a Belgian-style wheat beer; Derniere Volonte (Last Will), a Belgian-style blonde ale; and Paienne (Pagan), an American blonde ale.

Norman Miller is a Daily News staff writer. For questions, comments, suggestions or recommendations, e-mail nmiller@cnc.com or call 508-626-3823. Check out The Beer Nut blog at http://blogs.wickedlocal.com/beernut/ or follow the Beer Nut at his Twitter page at www.twitter.com/realbeernut.